Check out the growing number of recipes in Divine Cuisine (see Share It!). Will Willimon has promised us a recipe. Check it out often.

God has View, World Communion Sunday, Slaves, Seeds, Theodicy2007-10-04 by David von Schlichten

The sermon is slow growing this week, but there's time. The Holy Spirit provides.

World Communion Sunday is a crucial theme to draw attention to, especially given the divisiveness of the Church and the world.

One possibility is to connect the Gospel to Christian unity. Christ does not call us to deleterious competition and hostility but to, according to Luke 17:1-10:

1. Forgiveness (verses 1-4)

2. Slavehood, obeying the master, not for a reward, but because that is what we are to do; part of slavehood is being quick to forgive; remember, it is God alone who "has View" (scroll down for Jim Somerville's blog entry on L'Engle's understanding of God having View)

Imagine if we all focused on slavehood instead of yelling insults and then stomping out of the room over homosexuality and other issues.

3. The faith the Spirit has sown in our souls will help us to forgive and be slaves; even the tiniest faith is amazingly powerful.

Then there's Habakkuk, where our first lesson comes from in my denomination (ELCA). Habakkuk deals with the perennial theodicy issue, always an important topic. Maybe, however, the Spirit wants me to save that for another Sunday.

I don't know, but I do know I need to get dressed so I can attend our monthly, inter-denominational ministerium meeting at 9:30.

We are a rainbow of ministers, ranging from very liberal to very conservative, divided on many issues, including profound ones. Nevertheless, we still can agree on some things, like that the hungry need food. Thanks be to God.

Yours in Christ,

David von Schlichten, poedifier

What does it mean to remember?2007-10-04 by Jim Somerville

Thursday is my day off.It’s the day I let the playful exegesis of Monday and the careful study of Tuesday and the thoughtful questioning of Wednesday ferment and begin to bubble. Sometimes, when I am running among the tall trees in Rock Creek Park or sailing on the Potomac River a bubble will pop—a happy little “Aha!” moment that moves me one step closer to Sunday’s sermon.

Today, although it’s still early, I’m thinking about World Communion Sunday and Jesus’ insistence that his disciples remember him.I’m wondering what would happen if we thought of remembering not so much as the opposite of forgetting, but as the opposite of dismembering. If we are the body of Christ, and Christ’s body was broken in his suffering and death, is communion a way of putting it back together again?Is World Communion Sunday a way of re-membering the body of Christ scattered around the globe?

I’ll let you think about that one. It’s my day off. I’m going to go out and play.

_______________

Jim Somerville is pastor of the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, DC; adjunct professor of preaching at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies; and one-time host of the Festival of Homiletics.

God Has View2007-10-03 by Jim Somerville

Sometimes lectionary preachers are accused of being irrelevant, of digging around in ancient texts in search of archaeological treasures they can show off on Sunday morning to the few people who are interested in such things.“What does any of that have to do with this?” our accusers say, holding up the morning newspaper. But I remember Sunday, September 16, 2001, when the morning newspaper was still in shock from the September 11 attacks, and my associate stepped to the lectern, opened the ancient book of Lamentations, and began to read the opening lines of this Sunday’s lection:

“How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!” I remember the gasp that went up from the congregation. It was so clearly a reference to New York!But how could Jeremiah have known, all those years ago, what would happen in America on September 11, 2001?

I have nothing against topical preachers. In fact, some of my most respected colleagues begin their weekly preparation with the “Today” show, Time magazine, and the morning newspaper. They think about current events, listen for the word on the street, and then dig around in the Bible to see what God might have to say about sexual harassment lawsuits, for example, or the situation in Burma. I stand in awe of their ability to weave those current events and the eternal word together. But I also think that what the lectionary gives us—and what we desperately need—is the perspective of the centuries and not just this morning’s op-ed piece. I like to imagine that the occasional reading of a passage like this one from Lamentations would prepare our hearts for something like September 11, even before we knew what it was they were being prepared for.

In 2004 I spent two minutes on a CNN talk show responding to a question about a minister in California who had told the members of his congregation that they would go to Hell if they voted for John Kerry. My response was that we serve a God who has watched over the rise and fall of empires for millennia now, and that a single presidential election in the United States of America might not carry as much eternal significance as that minister imagined.

I like what Madeline L’Engle has said, and what the lectionary helps me remember: “I have a point of view, you have a point of view—God has view.”_______________

Jim Somerville is pastor of the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, DC; adjunct professor of preaching at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies; and one-time host of the Festival of Homiletics.

Looking Ahead to October 21: Lk 18:1-8, the parable of the widow and unjust judge (installment three)2007-10-03 by Ron Allen

This is the third of three installments on the gospel text for October 21, Luke 18:1-8, the parable of the widow and the unjust judge.

When moving from the text to today, I am thinking of two possibilities.

The first is to make an analogy between the function of the text in the world of Luke and the function of the text today. The preacher might identify ways that the situation of the church today is similar to that of Luke's time. The sermon would use the parable as a word of assurance to a congregation living through difficult times and in which people are in danger of giving up on witnessing to the realm.

This approach would require identifying circumstances in the world, and in the denomination and the congregation, that are difficult, and helping the congregation imagine how Lukan style prayer can sustain them within such circumstances.

A second approach takes its cue from the fact that the delay has turned into two millennia. Perhaps the time has come to reconceive what we mean by the realm and how it comes. As a process thinker, I do not believe that God will (or can) end the present age in a single dramatic apocalypse and replace it with a whole new world. I believe that God is always present attempting to lure the world to the highest possbilities for love, justice, peace, and abundance that are possible within the circumstances of each moment.

From this point of view, prayer is the intentional opening of the self to God and to the realm-like possibilities that are, indeed, possible in each moment. When we say yes to the realm, then our "Yes" helps facilitate a manifestation of the realm in our moment, while a 'No" frustrates those possbilities. When we say no, God does not abandon us, but works with the choices we have made to lure us towards the possibilities that are possible in view of our reduced choice.

From the point of view of this second perspective, we need always to pray in order to be as consciously available to the realm as is possible. We need not lose heart because, even when we choose against the realm, God does not give up on us or on the world but continues to work in the world to offer choices that can lead towards love, peace, justice, and abundance.

Whether one goes with the first approach or the second, or some other, the notion of prayer as the intentioinal opening of the individual or community to the realm brings an intriguing possibility. Luke doubtless has in mind prayer as a formal, verbal action, that is, talking with God in language, much as we pray in worship or prior to partaking of a meal. Going beyond Luke, according to this definition, prayer need not be confined to conventional verbal expression but can embrace multiple ways of seeking to open self and community to the presence of the realm. I once preached a sermon from this perspective on "Praying with Your Feet." For example, any time we take to the streets to demonstrate against injustice and in favor of justice, we pray with our feet. Standing outside a prison to protest capital punishment--murder carried out by the state--is an act of prayer.

Ron Allen, Christian Theological Seminary

For consideration on preachin themes in Luke-Acts, you might see Ron Allen, Preaching Luke-Acts. Preaching Classic Texts (Chalice Press), available from www.chalicepress.org. Fuller comments on today's lectionary passage (and on all passages in the lectionary) are are available in the lectionary commentary by Ron Allen and Clark Williamson, Preaching the Gospels without Blaming the Jews (Westminster John Knox Press) and its companion volumes, Preaching the Letters without Dismissing the Law and Preaching the Old Testament, all from www.wjkbooks.com.